Tiquez

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

Michael Tiquez & )

Mara Tiquez, )

)

Plaintiffs, )

)

)

v. ) No. 25 C 15775

)

)

Carmen Marine Cooperative )

et al., )

)

Defendants. )

Memorandum Opinion and Order

Plaintiffs Mara and Michael Tiquez are a mother and son. In

response to the deactivation of Mara’s apartment keys by Mara’s

co-op, the Carmen Marine Cooperative (“CMC”), plaintiffs filed

this suit against the City of Chicago, two police officers, and

several private defendants related to CMC, alleging a harms under

constitutional, federal, and state law. Before me are the non-

police-related defendants’ motion to dismiss. For the reasons that

follow, I grant that motion.

1

I.

Michael and Mara are proceeding pro se, and as I work through

their complaint, I am mindful that I must read it generously.

Parker v. Four Seasons Hotels, Ltd., 845 F.3d 807, 811 (7th Cir.

2017).1

I need to provide some backstory about the Carmen-Marine

apartment complex owned by CMC to lay foundation for some of the

Tiquezes’ arguments, in particular those concerning state action.

In the mid-century, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development (“HUD”), through the Federal Housing Administration

(“FHA”), provided loans for the construction of thousands of large

housing projects, including the Carmen-Marine complex.2 In exchange

for those loans, and until they were repaid, building owners were

required to keep rents low and to rent to low-income tenants. The

Carmen-Marine complex was funded by one of these FHA loans. When

repayment periods on many of these projects were ending,

1 For present purposes, I take the facts in the complaint as true.

Reger Dev., LLC v. Nat’l City Bank, 592 F.3d 759, 763 (7th Cir.

2010).

2 These details are drawn from a report that plays a role in this

case and of which I take judicial notice. “Carmen-Marine

Apartments, Chicago, IL, Resident Homeownership Program,” HUD

Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report No. 2015-CH-1010

(Sep. 30, 2015) (“OIG Audit Report”),

https://www.hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2015-CH-

1010.pdf.

2

threatening to reduce the affordable housing stock in the country,

Congress passed the Low Income Housing Preservation and Resident

Homeownership Act (“LIHPRHA”), 12 U.S.C. §§ 4101 et seq. LIHPRHA

provided incentives for building owners to sell their properties

to non-profit organizations or tenant cooperatives, rather than

removing their low-income tenants and renting at market rates.

In the 1990s, residents at the Carmen-Marine complex formed

the Carmen-Marine Tenants’ Association. The association applied

for, and received, a $23.1 million LIHPRHA grant from HUD which it

used to buy and refurbish the building, eventually turning over

ownership to CMC. Residents in the building could then purchase

memberships in CMC, with each membership corresponding to

occupancy of a unit in the complex. Under the terms of the HUD

grant, LIHPRHA was to administer sales of memberships in a

particular way and to remit particular proceeds from membership

sales to HUD. Per an audit by HUD’s Office of the Inspector

General, CMC has largely failed to abide by the terms of the

grant.3

3 OIG Audit Report, supra n. 2, at 1 (“[CMC] did not ensure that

[any of seven grant criteria were met]. As a result, HUD and the

Cooperative lacked assurance that the project was operated in

accordance with HUD’s requirements and the grant agreement, and

the Cooperative is at risk of having to reimburse HUD nearly

$22.7 million in Program funds.”).

3

At some point, Mara purchased a membership in CMC and became

a resident at the complex. And at some point in 2025—exactly when

is unclear, although it appears to have been around August—Michael

moved into Mara’s unit. Witnesses in certain body-worn camera

videos that the Tiquezes submitted to the court have indicated

that, at the point Michael moved in, Mara was living in a separate

residence outside of the complex. After he moved in, and apparently

as a result of reading the HUD OIG audit mentioned above, Michael

began “investigating the [CMC] Board’s finances,” the results of

which investigation he “reported to HUD OIG.” ECF 24 at 2.

On November 4, 2025, the president of the CMC board of

directors, defendant Stella Popa, directed another board member,

defendant Diana Molina, to deactivate the key fobs that the

Tiquezes used to enter both the building and Mara’s apartment.4

Michael alleges that the deactivation was due to some combination

of discrimination against he and his mother’s Jewish and Latino

heritage and retaliation for the investigation he had been running

into the board.

On November 28, 2025, Michael went to the building and, on

being denied entrance, called the police. Officer Danny Yu and

4 The body-worn camera videos attached to the complaint seem to

indicate that only Michael’s and not Mara’s key fob was

deactivated, but that ends up being immaterial.

4

Sergeant Mandy Tucker—both of the Chicago Police Department, and

both defendants—responded. Michael did not gain entrance or the

reactivation of his fob. On December 1, 2025, Michael again

returned to the complex and again called the police. He did not

gain entrance or reactivation. At each of these visits, Michael

explained his position to the police. Police then heard from CMC

Board members Anca Neciu and Luminita Dragos (both defendants) and

Vanessa Williams, an employee of Forth Group, the Carmen-Marine

complex’s management company (Forth and Williams are also

defendants). These defendants told police, as recorded on the

officers’ body-worn cameras, that they had deactivated Michael’s

fob because: (1) his mother, and not he, was the proper occupant

of the residence; (2) Michael had been acting erratically, as if

he were in mental distress or under the influence of narcotics;

and (3) he had thrown eggs out of the window of the unit at a

maintenance person who was working from a platform suspended high

above the ground.5

5 For better or worse, plaintiff can supplement, and supplant, his

complaint with video footage he provides alongside it. Bogie v.

Rosenberg, 705 F.3d 603, 611 (7th Cir. 2013).

5

On December 1, 2025, Michael filed suit in Cook County Circuit

Court.6 Michael’s complaint petitioned for preliminary injunctive

relief granting him access to the apartment and then pled several

causes of action that resemble those here. It is my understanding

that, whether in the context of that case or one to be filed after

its conclusion, CMC will be attempting to evict the Tiquezes.

Those are the facts on which the Tiquezes have based their

complaint. To recap, the defendants are:

•

Carmen Marine Cooperative, the tenant-run non-

profit which owns the Carmen-Marine complex

o Stella Popa, CMC Board President

o Luminita Dragos, CMC Board Member

o Diana Molina, CMC Board Member

o Anca Neciu, CMC Board Member

•

Forth Group, LLC, the management company for the

Carmen-Marine complex

o Vanessa Williams, a Forth employee

•

The City of Chicago

o Seargeant Mandy Tucker

o Officer Danny Yu

Against all of these, plaintiffs have attempted to make out

sixteen causes of action, eight of which fall under 42 U.S.C. §

1983 and eight of which correspond to other federal, state, and

6 Tiquez v. Carmen Marine Cooperative et al., No. 2025-CH-12045

(Ill. Cir. Ct. Dec. 1, 2025).

6

contract provisions. To the best of my understanding, the counts

are as follows:

The 1983 Counts

Count Defendants: Claim:

I All but Deactivation of the key fobs constituted an

Chicago unreasonable seizure of property under the

Fourth Amendment

II All but Deactivation of the key fobs constituted

Chicago retaliation for the exercise of Michael’s

First Amendment right to report the results

of his independent investigation to HUD’s

OIG

III Tucker and Officers’ failure to force CMC and Forth to

Yu reactivate the key fobs constituted an

unreasonable seizure of property under the

Fourth Amendment

IV Tucker and After Michael explained his position to

Yu Tucker and Yu, they told him that further

persistence might result in arrest,

constituting retaliation in violation of his

First Amendment right to call 911.

V Tucker and Tucker and Yu’s negative view of Michael’s

Yu position, when contrasted with other

officers’ apparently-positive view,

constituted a violation of his right to

equal protection under the Fourteenth

Amendment

VI Chicago The City’s failure to train Tucker and Yu to

treat Michael’s situation more favorably

constituted a violation of Michael’s rights

pursuant to Monell

VII All but Defendants conspired to deprive Michael of

Chicago his constitutional rights in the previous

counts

VIII All Defendants deprived Michael of access to the

apartment by deactivating his fob without an

opportunity to be heard, violating his

rights to due process under the Fourteenth

Amendment

7

The Non-1983 Counts

IX All instant Deactivation of the key fobs constituted

defendants racially discriminatory interference with

contract under 42 U.S.C. § 1981

X All instant Deactivation of the key fobs constituted

defendants racially discriminatory interference with

property under 42 U.S.C. § 1982

XI All instant Deactivation of the key fobs violated CMC’s

defendants use agreement

XII All but Defendants conspired to interfere with

Chicago Michael’s civil rights under 42 U.S.C. §

1985(3)

XIII Forth, Defendants had knowledge of the conspiracy

Williams, in Count XII but failed to prevent it under

Neciu, 42 U.S.C. § 1986

Dragos

XIV All instant Deactivation of the key fobs violated

defendants plaintiffs’ rights under the Fair Housing

Act

XV Williams, Defendants’ statements to the police about

Popa, Michael’s behavior constituted defamation

Molina, and per se

Neciu

XVI All but Various actions by defendants indicating

Chicago that they would attempt to evict plaintiffs

constituted intimidation under the Fair

Housing Act

The pending motion concerns only the instant defendants,

while Chicago and the officers have not yet been served. The

instant defendants move to dismiss every count which applies to

them: I–II and VII–XVI.

II.

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion challenges the “sufficiency of the

complaint.” Berger v. Nat. Collegiate Athletic Assoc., 843 F.3d

285, 289 (7th Cir. 2016). A complaint must provide “a short and

plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled

8

to relief.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).

The complaint must “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as

true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’

” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly,

550 U.S. at 570). “‘A claim has facial plausibility when the

plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the

misconduct alleged.’” Boucher v. Fin. Sys. of Green Bay, Inc., 880

F.3d 362, 366 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678).

III.

Plaintiffs have asserted many claims, but they can be grouped

into three tranches, each of which turns on a single issue. I will

deal with one preliminary and then turn to those three groups.

A. Short and Plain Statements

Defendants’ first contention is that I should dismiss the

complaint as simply incomprehensible. Rule 8 requires that

pleadings contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing

that the pleader is entitled to relief,” and while pro se

litigants’ filings should be read generously, they must at least

be intelligible. Job v. Illinois Dept. of Human Servs., 2009 WL

255596, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 2, 2009). Defendants are right that

the Tiquezes’ complaint is neither short nor plain. But, while it

may resist comprehension, it is not literally incomprehensible.

9

B. State Action

Counts I–VIII all assert claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Section 1983 “provides a civil remedy against any ‘person’ who

violates a plaintiff’s federal civil rights while acting under

color of state law.” Thomas v. Neenah Joint Sch. Dist., 74 F.4th

521, 523 (7th Cir. 2023). Any claim under Section 1983 requires

that the defendant be, at least in some sense, a state actor, and

the instant defendants insist that, as to Counts I, II, VII, and

VIII, they are not. Their argument is simple: CMC is a private,

non-governmental organization; Forth is a private, non-

governmental organization; and Williams and the board members are

private citizens.

The Tiquezes’ arguments are more complicated. First, they

contend that because CMC’s purchase of the Carmen-Marine complex

was funded by an FHA loan, and because HUD has ongoing oversight

of that loan, CMC and its agent, Forth, are effectively government

actors, meaning that Williams and the CMC board members, as their

agents or employees or representatives, are as well. Second,

plaintiffs seem to be saying that, because officers responded to

the complex on November 28, 2025, and because those officers did

not force CMC to reactivate the key fobs, they “ratifie[d]” the

deactivation so as to retroactively make it state action. ECF 62

at 17. Or, in the alternative, the officers were conspiring with

10

CMC and Forth so closely as to make CMC and Forth (and Williams

and the board members) de facto government actors on those days.

In general:

There are no hard and fast rules for determining the

presence of state action. Indeed, the Supreme Court has

emphasized repeatedly that the state action inquiry must

be made on a case-by-case basis. Despite this emphasis

on individual cases, certain generalizations are still

possible. State action exists: (1) where the state and

the private party or entity maintain a sufficiently

interdependent or symbiotic relationship; (2) where the

state requires, encourages, or is otherwise

significantly involved in nominally private conduct; and

(3) where the private person or entity exercises a

traditional state function.

1 Nahmod, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Litigation: The Law of

Section 1983 § 2:4. But although extensive state funding or

regulation of a private entity might constitute significant

involvement, regulation and funding are, without more, not enough

to turn private conduct into state action. Jackson v. Metropolitan

Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 351 (1974). This is because there must

be some nexus “between the State and the challenged action of the

[private] entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly

treated as that of the State itself.” Id.

In the first place, the instant defendants are correct that

none of them is inherently a state actor. In the second,

plaintiffs’ initial argument fails. CMC was indeed formed through

a $23.1 million LIHPRHA grant from HUD, and CMC is supposed to be

bound by certain terms pursuant to that grant. But HUD clearly

11

does not control CMC, given that HUD’s OIG has repeatedly found

that CMC is not complying with the terms of its LIHPRHA grant.7

More, the complaint does not suggest any nexus, any reason that

CMC’s having received HUD funding would have led to the

deactivation of their key fobs. And in the third place, the

Tiquezes have failed to plead that the officers were involved in

the deactivation in any way.

The Tiquezes’ main citation in this area is Soldal v. Cook

Cnty., Ill., 506 U.S. 56 (1992). There, the owners of a trailer

park decided to illegally evict Soldal, a tenant. Id. at 57–58.

The owners called the Cook County Sheriff’s department “and

requested the presence of sheriff deputies to forestall any

possible resistance.” Id. at 58. Several deputies arrived and

looked on as the owners hooked up a tractor to Soldal’s trailer

7 In addition to the HUD OIG audit cited in note 2, supra, CMC

failed HUD OIG audits in 2016 and 2018, both of which plaintiffs

cited in their complaint.

“Carmen-Marine Apartments, Chicago, IL, Resident Homeownership

Program,” HUD Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report No.

2017-CH-0001 (Oct. 25, 2016),

https://www.hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2017-CH-

0001.pdf.

“Carmen-Marine Apartments, Chicago, IL, Resident Homeownership

Program,” HUD Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report No.

2018-CG-0001 (Dec. 22, 2017),

https://www.hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2018-CH-

0001.pdf.

12

and towed it away, destroying it in the process. Id. One of the

deputies explained to Soldal that “he was there to see that Soldal

didn’t interfere with [the owners’] work.” Id. (cleaned up). The

Tiquezes’ argument seems to be that, like the sheriff’s deputies

in Soldal, Officers Yu and Tucker stood by while their property

was seized, thus effectively participating in the seizure, making

it state action.

That is mistaken. First, Soldal is not about state action.

The question presented was whether seizing Soldal’s home—without

violating his privacy by looking inside—implicated the Fourth

Amendment. Id. at 61–72. Second, that the state action in Soldal

was so obvious as to be beyond dispute points up how different the

situation there was from the one in this case. In Soldal, the

sheriff’s deputies participated directly, and told Soldal they

were participating directly, in the seizure of his home. Id. at

58. Here, Michael called the police a month after his fob was

deactivated and they, recognizing a civil dispute not within their

province of action, did not act. That does not retroactively

convert the fob deactivation into state action. Likewise, nothing

on the officers’ body-worn camera footage indicates anything to

the contrary, much less that they conspired with any of the instant

defendants to deactivate the fobs.

13

Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim as to Counts I, II,

VII, and VIII.

C. Racially Motivated Interference

In Counts IX and X, plaintiffs allege that the instant

defendants interfered with their contractual and property rights

for racially motivated reasons under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 (contract)

and 1982 (property). In Count XII, plaintiffs have alleged that

the instant defendants, along with Officers Tucker and Yu,

conspired to effect the interference in Counts IX and X under 42

U.S.C. § 1985(3). In Count XIII, they allege that Forth, Williams,

Neciu, and Dragos were aware of the conspiracy and neglected to

prevent it under 42 U.S.C. § 1986. In Count XIV, they allege that

the instant defendants interfered with their rights under the Fair

Housing Act under 42 U.S.C. § 3604(b) & (f). And in Count XVI,

they allege that the instant defendants, Tucker, and Yu engaged in

intimidation, coercion, and interference prohibited by another

section of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3617.

As best as I can tell, in each count except XVI, the Tiquezes

are referring to the deactivation of the key fobs. In that last

count, they are alleging that certain statements made to Michael

during his visits to the Carmen Marine complex were intimidating

or coercive. And in each count but XIV, they are alleging that

defendants’ actions were motivated by racially discriminatory

14

intent. In that count, they allege discriminatory intent due to a

disability of Mara’s and Mara and Michael’s national origin, rather

than their race.

As defendants have detailed at length, each of these

provisions comes with its own set of elements which plaintiffs

must make out in order to state a claim for the purposes of Rule

12(b)(6). Each share one element though, which is that to state a

claim, a plaintiff must plead facts connecting whatever harm they

have suffered to their race (or, in Count XIV, their disability

and national origin) by way of defendants’ intent to discriminate

on that basis. Black Agents & Brokers Agency, Inc. v. Near N. Ins.

Brokerage, 409 F.3d 833, 837 (7th Cir. 2005) (Section 1981); Shaare

Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615, 616–17 (1987) (Section

1982); Green v. Benden, 281 F.3d 661, 665 (7th Cir. 2002) (Section

1985(3)); Washington v. Sherwin Real Estate, Inc., 694 F.2d 1081,

1089–1090 (7th Cir. 1982) (42 U.S.C. § 3604(b)); Roseborough v.

Cottonwood Apartments, 1996 WL 490717, at *1–*2 (N.D. Ill. Aug.

26, 1996) (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)); Bloch v. Frischholz, 587 F.3d

771, 781–82 (7th Cir. 2009) (42 U.S.C. § 3617).

The only exception to that rule is Count XIII, which alleges

that some defendants neglected to prevent a conspiracy formed by

other defendants. That count lives or dies with Count XII, which

alleges the conspiracy itself; if there was no conspiracy, then no

15

one can have neglected to prevent it. Grimes v. Smith, 776 F.2d

1359, 1363 n.4 (7th Cir. 1985).

Plaintiffs have failed to plead facts which would, for any of

these counts, connect their alleged harms with defendants’

discriminatory intent. They have pled that they are Jewish and

Latino, but they have not pled that defendants knew of their race

or religion or ever manifested any evidence of discrimination

related to them.8 As for Count XIV, they have pled that Mara had

unspecified health problems, but not a disability, and they have

not pled that defendants were aware of it or failed to accommodate

it. Likewise as to that count, they have not pled a single fact

about their national origin.

Every explicit statement defendants have made in the

documents and body-worn camera footage that plaintiffs have

referenced in and attached to their filings has related not to

plaintiffs’ race, national origin, or disability, but Michael’s

8 The Tiquezes have gestured towards a theory wherein the CMC board

is dominated by people of Eastern European descent and that the

board has delayed renting to people of Eritrean and Latino

descent. See ECF 24 at 8–9. But they failed to connect a theory

about the board’s Eastern European affiliations with the action

specifically at issue, meaning the fob deactivation. And such a

connection is necessary, considering that the board allowed Mara

not just to rent but to buy a membership in CMC and that its

alleged discriminatory feelings did not prompt it to attempt to

remove Mara at any previous point in her occupancy.

16

behavior. Plaintiffs maintain that those statements are all false,

but they have not pled any facts showing that defendants were

motivated by anything else.

Without such facts, plaintiffs have not stated a claim at

Counts IX–X, XII–XIV, or XVI.

D. State Claims

The remaining counts, XI and XV, concern state claims. Count

XI alleges a violation of the Carmen-Marine complex’s Use

Agreement, which lies in contract. And Count XV alleges defamation,

which lies in tort. Given that I am dismissing all federal claims

relating to the instant defendants and given that the state claims

relate only to the instant defendants, I decline to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction over those state claims. Groce v. Eli

Lilly & Co., 193 F.3d 496, 501 (7th Cir. 1999).

VI.

I grant the pending motion and dismiss Counts I–II and VII–

XVI as to the instant defendants. As this is the first dismissal,

it is without prejudice.

If plaintiffs are inclined to ask leave to amend, I would

advise them that the Rules of Civil Procedure apply to pro se as

well as counseled litigants and that when Rule 8 says “short and

plain,” it really does mean both short and plain.

17

ENTER ORDER:

Elaine E. Bucklo

United States District Judge

Dated: July 1, 2026

18